For those of you that don’t know, ASL is the acronym for American Sign Language, and it is the language in which the deaf and/or hard of hearing can use to communicate. Most Universities offer it as an option as part of the foreign language curriculum. Out of all the foreign languages offered–Arabic, German, Japanese, Latin–I chose to take ASL because I thought it would actually be fun to learn and the easiest… I was half-wrong.
I am a senior currently taking ASL II, and while it is getting easier, it is by no means easy. ASL II is taught much faster and so is the speed in which the teacher signs–You blink and you basically miss an entire sentence. The list of signs you have to memorize is also much longer, and in ASL II it’s voices off, meaning, there is absolutely no talking, from the professor or from you. Like most people, I assumed that I would be able to pick up on the language quickly because I saw all 6 seasons of ABC Family’s Switched At Birth, and it didn’t look that hard. After all, it’s English right?
Before you even think about taking ASL as your foreign language there are 3 things you should know:
#1– It’s NOT actually English.
ASL isn’t actually English. When someone is signing to you, they are in fact signing words that you recognize and heard before, but there are several things about ASL that doesn’t make it English. For example, ASL is signed big picture to details, the subject is always first, so in elementary school when you were asked to identify the subject of each sentence as well as the verbs and adjectives – if you didn’t pay attention, then don’t take ASL because you’re going to have to re-learn all of it. Another thing that makes ASL different from English is the English language has a ton of unnecessary words that American Sign Language does not use. Examples being words like “but,” “the,” “an,” “and,” “is,” there aren’t any signs specifically for those words, there also isn’t a sign for contractions or words that end in “ed.” For example, you wouldn’t sign “I packed,” “she dropped,” “they laughed.” There also isn’t a past tense in ASL, which means there is no “went,” “sang,” “ran,” or “ate” either. In order for you to sign something in the past tense you actually have to sign the word “previous” for people to actually know that this has already happened. Proof that Sign Language isn’t actually English, this is an English sentence:
“I’m going on vacation tomorrow.”
If someone were to sign this sentence to you this is what they would sign:
“Tomorrow vacation I go.”
In order for you to be signing in ASL and not English the time frame must be signed first, then the subject, then the details. You do not sign any extra words or words ending in “ing” because there isn’t a sign for them.
#2–ASL will be super-easy!
Let’s be honest, the only reason why people think ASL will be easy is because people are under the impression that ASL is the signed version of English, when in fact it is just like learning French, Spanish, or Latin. Whenever somebody speaks something to you in a foreign language, you have to translate it in your head and then you’ll be able to understand what is being said, and ASL is no different. Except, instead of someone saying words to you, you have to look at somebody’s hands and their facial expressions to understand what they are saying. It is very important that you pay attention to every single detail in ASL because facial expressions can drastically change the meaning of a sign, so do eyebrows, whether they are up or down.
#3 There are a lot of rules to ASL, and the grammar rules are the hardest to learn because they are the complete opposite of English grammar rules.
Some of the main rules in ASL that people are always surprised by is: one, you are not allowed to “mouth” the words as you are signing them. Yes, it might make it easier for people to understand you because instead of paying attention to what you’re signing, all they have to do is read your lips, and it also makes it easier for you to concentrate on what you’re signing, but in the long run, it’s a bad habit that you do not need to pick up on. The main reason why you’re not allowed to “mouth” your words as you sign them is because you won’t be able to sign in ASL (big picture to detail) if you do, also, your sentences wont make any sense because of all the English words that don’t have signs for them. To put things simply, ASL is sort of like an English sentence that is all mixed up and all the unnecessary words are taken out of it, so if you start “mouthing” what you’re signing you’re not going to make any sense anyway, and it’ll be hard for someone that doesn’t know ASL to follow you because you’re essentially signing an English sentence broken and completely out of order. In order to sign successfully, you also need to be extremely self-aware. There are certain parameters that you have to sign in, if you sign too high or too low then that is considered bad form. If your hand or hands aren’t facing the person you’re signing to (with the exception of numbers 1-9) that is also considered bad form, so is bouncing your hand as you’re fingerspelling. Another thing to pay attention to, is your eyebrows. Technically as part of grammar, when your signing a sentence in ASL, when you’re asking a question “wh words” like WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, goes at the beginning of the sentence and your eyebrows are down, if you’re asking a “yes-no” question your eyebrows are up.
That’s not even the tip of the iceberg, there are millions of insignificant seeming ASL rules that are a huge deal. After taking ASL I and II, I have not just a new appreciation for Sign Language, but all different types of languages in general. Even though Sign language is a lot harder than I thought it would be, I would still recommend this foreign language to anyone and everyone because I’m actually having fun learning this language and I actually look forward to going to that class every day. The most rewarding part to me about taking ASL happened a few months ago when an interpreter made a joke in one of my non-ASL classes to a deaf student and I laughed. The interpreter heard me, and I got to join in on the conversation. I made a new friend that day and she has been one of my best friends ever since.